Apple Pay

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has denied four of Australia’s banks an interim authorisation to act collectively against Apple and other third party wallet providers (Samsung and Google) in Australia.

In essence, the banks asked the ACCC to allow them to collectively negotiate with Apple over the terms of its electronic payment system Apple Pay. They have argued that Apple is stifling competition by not allowing banks direct access to the NFC wireless functionality in the iPhone so that they can create their own “digital wallets”.

Australia’s banks have always enjoyed a lucrative income from credit card “interchange fees”, the charges that the banks levy on merchants’ sales. These fees amount to AU $2.5 billion a year which are ultimately passed on to consumers.

Unwilling to share any of this revenue with Apple, all but ANZ and American Express have refused to adopt Apple Pay. Instead, four of the largest banks, NAB, Westpac, Commonwealth and Bendigo and Adelaide have asked Australia’s competition regulator, the ACCC, for permission to act collectively to negotiate with Apple over access for their own digital wallet products on its phones, tablets and watches.

One of the great things about Apple Pay is that it ‘just works’ – wherever you can already make contactless payments, Apple Pay should work. Retailers and merchants don’t need to explicitly support Apple Pay.
Unfortunately, Apple is keen on pushing the Apple Pay brand/mark and have even partnered with ANZ to display the mark on all ANZ issued terminals.

Over a year since Apple launched ‘Apple Pay’ in the United States, and after adding the United Kingdom and then Canada.. it’s finally Australia’s turn to join in on the fun.

But there’s a catch – it’s launching with American Express support only, and even then it’s limited to cards directly issued by American Express – so if you’ve got a card issued by CommBank or NAB, you’re out of luck for now.
(you’ll need your card issuer to sign on the dotted line with Apple…)

Of course, if you’re a visiting tourist with a card already in Apple Pay (a Visa card or MasterCard), it should work just fine at all the contactless terminals in Australia already.